Furrow Lake – Site 2

Look, I’ve already made my thoughts on Furrow Lake and its campsites prettyclear. However, for completion’s sake, here is a review of the hands down worst campsite I stayed on in the summer of 2016. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Furrow Lake – Site 2.

Location/terrain: On a small island, halfway down the creek that leads to the Lady Slipper portage in the southwest end of the lake. This is a really small and overgrown site. Apart from the small rocky slope where the fire pit and canoe landing are, there really aren’t many open spaces.

Coming up on the site from the creek. Canoe landing is directly in front. So is fire pit and demon chair.

Canoe Landing: Probably the only halfway decent thing about the site, and I mean halfway. Landing is at the bottom of a slope that comes almost right up to the water. This means that it can be tricky getting out of the boat without getting your feet wet, but not impossible. Unloading isn’t a problem, as long as you’re willing to drag the boat up a few feet onto the slope.

Tent Sites: ? If you can find one you’re better at this than I am. We ended up pitching our tent on a sloped patch of something green and prickly close to the fire pit. The only other option we could see was to set it up in a small depression along the path that leads away from the firepit, but that was less than ideal as well.

A picture from just beneath the fire pit looking back at the site. The water is about five feet behind where I took this picture.

Same view, but now with our tent set up. Note the angle of the tent. It’s not awesome.

Fire Pit: A very small circle of rocks built on an angle on the rock slope I mentioned earlier. The good news is that there’s zero concern about a root fire. I suppose maybe some concern about your fire rolling down the hill though. The site’s grill actually wasn’t that bad. I’d give it a 2/5 on the “I wouldn’t put something that’s going in my stomach on that” scale.

Swimabiity: No. Well, unless you like swimming in stagnant tea coloured creek water. If so, then slap on those water wings and dive right in! Well, don’t dive, it’s really shallow.

Thunderbox: Actually not bad. Maybe the highlight of the site. Probably owing to the extreme awfulness of the site, the T-box doesn’t seem to have had much use, so it’s still in good shape. It’s not that far away from where you’d have your fire and set up your tent, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing because the path, if it ever existed, out to it has long since overgrown so it might be hard to find if you couldn’t see it from the site. It’s a bad thing because you can see it from the site. At least it faces the other direction.

Views: These actually weren’t bad. The view down the creek during sunset is quite lovely and, if you follow a small path to the north west side of the island, you get a pretty great view down Furrow.